Page 362 has been a family day as I let the teaching and sermon for this coming Sunday simmer in my mind a bit.  I began the day by finishing up the prayer guide that I wrote for next week.  I needed to make sure it was formatted and available for a church that is using them on a slightly different schedule than my normal publishing of them.  While the next prayer guide will correspond with the sermon I plan to share at Deer Run on Sunday, a lot of my “simmering” time today was focused on the prayer teaching I will do during the Bible School  hour.  One of the favorite teachings that I like to share is about what I call developing a lifestyle of prayer in the real world.  

As the director of a prayer ministry, I often get people to tell me, in one way or another, that they would like to have a more vibrant prayer life but it just isn’t possible for someone in their circumstances.  It usually goes something like this, “I would love to pray more if I could, I simply don’t have the time to pray that others seem to have.”  It is in responding to that scenario that I help people to see God’s command to “pray without ceasing” isn’t directed simply to people who have the time to do that.  No, it is meant for all of us which means God believes it is possible for us to develop a lifestyle of prayer no matter what our life schedule looks like.  Sure, it may take some adjusting to our schedule in areas that we consider “our time”, but mostly it involves praying no matter what our schedule finds us doing.  Each of us have a “real world” that looks different to some degree than everyone else’s, but we can learn some general principles of the who, what, and how to pray in all circumstances as we develop a lifestyle of prayer.

My wife’s birthday was today and part of the day we spent finding and photographing a few covered bridges.  With no leaves on the trees, some of the bridges are more visible during the winter than at other times of the year.  Unfortunately, the winter also brings with it an earlier sunset which limits the number of bridges we can get to in an afternoon’s daylight hours.  Today’s photo was taken through the window of one of the bridges as the sun was quickly dropping in the western horizon.  As I walked through the bridge, the light caught my eye so I stopped to shoot a few photos.  I believe God is constantly shining His light upon us with the desire that it will catch our eye and make us stop and acknowledge His presence.  

I pray that you and I would allow the Word of God and the teachings it contains to simmer in our life on a regular basis.  I pray that godly teaching would mature in our lives for the purpose of sharing it with  others.  I pray that each of us would desire to grow in a lifestyle of prayer as we learn how to incorporate a prayer life into everything we do.  I pray that we would pay attention to the light of God shining upon us.  I pray that when God shines His light upon us that we would freely share that light with the people around us.